In philosophy and psychology, "Ressentiment" is one of the forms of resentment or hostility. The concept was of particular interest to some 19th century thinkers, most notably Friedrich Nietzsche. The term was also studied by Max Scheler in a monograph published in 1912 and reworked a few years later. Scheler attempted to place Nietzsche's ideas in a more sociologically articulated context. He started by considering how values are established within society and next proceeded to analyze their sharing or rejection on various grounds.

Scheler's described Ressentiment in his book by the same title as follows: “…Ressentiment is a self-poisoning of the mind which has quite definite causes and consequences. It is a lasting mental attitude, caused by the systematic repression of certain emotions and affects which, as such are normal components of human nature. Their repression leads to the constant tendency to indulge in certain kinds of value delusions and corresponding value judgments. The emotions and affects primarily concerned are revenge, hatred, malice, envy, the impulse to detract, and spite...”

Autotoxemia series seeks to visualize the sense of resentment and hostility directed at that which one identifies as the cause of one's frustration, generated by a sense of weakness and inferiority and feelings of jealousy and envy. A combination of collage portraits and abstract images were used in this work. The facial features of the portraits have been replaced with photographs of stormy seas, which convey the emotional state of a resentful man, as facial expressions are a form of nonverbal communication. All these images were processed in such a way as to refer to the toxicity that results from the state of resentment.





              













          








About Artist

Yiannis Trifonopoulos (b.1986) is a Greek visual artist and photographer, based in Orestiada, GR.
He is a contributor editor of the online contemporary Photography magazine Phases.

https://www.johntrifonopoulos.com